Thursday’s Obsession – Lhasa

As I’ve been tarring my fingers with work overload lately, I’ve been terrible about blogging. Apologies there, but I did want to share with you a short, if sweet obsession.

I first heard Lhasa’s hauntingly luminous voice while watching Cold Souls, an odd little film about soul extraction where a tortured writer, played by Paul Giamatti, grapples with having a shriveled chickpea for a soul. I couldn’t stop wanting to have her serenade me–while I washed dishes, wrote, trickled off to sleep.

Although her musical offerings are not without brevity, her voice has je ne sais quoi, the power to linger on much longer than her life. She died too early, at 37 from breast cancer, but I think I will be listening to Lhasa for a long time to come.

Two of my favorite songs, Pa’llegara Tu Lado and La Maree Haute, can be found on the Cold Souls soundtrack as well as Lhasa’s 2003 release, The Living Road. Her three other albums are worth checking out as well.